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FORT SMITH (KFSM) -- As Facebook makes plans to fight the spread of fake news, a list of misleading, fake and satirical news websites compiled by a Merrimack College professor has been going viral on social media, but a writer who now works in Fort Smith is frustrated one of the websites she worked for is on the list.

Alana Cook has been a writer since 2000 and she worked as a reporter for World Net Daily in 2014. She currently freelances for the Southwest Times Record.

She said she is frustrated because she poured her heart into her job.

"I'm known in my field for being fair and objective," Cook said.

She said she admired her editor and she did not see any signs of fake or misleading news being purposely reported by World Net Daily.

"We had daily meetings and we had to answer to [our news editor] every single day," Cook said. "I never saw anything where people were dishonest. Far from it."

However, she said she did see short-staffed newsrooms.

"I want people to under that newsrooms, their [staff] have been cut in half," Cook said.

She believes that is the biggest contributor to mistakes made in reporting.

"I don't think the issue has to do with fake news as much as it has to do with limited resources," Cook explained.

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6 comments

It depends on how you define “fake”. Every news outlet is slanted either to the management / editorial agenda, or is filtered by the reporters own biases or point of reference. This is of course filtered, biased, agenda based on me. It is well nigh impossible to get truth unless you are a witness and trained in situational awareness and reporting.

So a far left professor puts out a list of fake news sites and we are supposed to believe this? Please. Liberal goons have now resorted to targeting legitimate sites because they are still butt-hurt about the election and are looking to deflect attention from the real reasons Crooked Hillary lost. Also, the democrat party and its ‘mainstream’ hoaxing media arm want to quell all opposition and attack free speech so they come up with bs tactics like this. Ironically (as always), they are the ones generating fake news. CNN, which 5 “News” often posts stories from, is as phony and one-sided as it gets. These charlatans spent the entire election cycle lying about Donald Trump and covering for Crooked Hillary. Just Google ‘CNN caught lying” or words to that effect and see for yourselves the countless examples of their deceit. And thanks to Wikileaks, the media’s bias was exposed even more. Facebook and Twitter are also now censoring free speech by attacking legitimate news sources. The bottom line is this: the real fake news organizations, the so-called ‘Mainstream Media’ – CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, NYT, etc. – are losing their power because the vast majority of Americans don’t buy their sh*t anymore and are resorting to other sources including social media to discern the truth. And in case you didn’t know – 5 “News” is owned by Tribune Media, a Chicago-based conglomerate that owns multiple liberal rags across the country. Just try and recall one time when 5 “News” posted a negative Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama story. Good luck.

Speaking of “fake news” and bias. I find it interesting that kfsm has totally neglected to report at all on President-elect Trump’s “foundation” admitting to committing felony federal tax fraud or his “university” paying $25 million to settle lawsuits in an obvious attempt to stave off various criminal investigations.

kfsm has no problem putting scandals with the opposition front and center for days at a time. but when their favored politicians have scandals: they conveniently get ignored. kfsm all but create Tom Cotton. But when he got caught accepting cash from a foreign government, not one word from kfsm.

All media is biased: towards profit. If it bleeds, it leads, and all that. But kfsm flies their political banner high.

WND – helped push the lie that Obama wasn’t a US citizen (even after the birth certificate was produced and after it was pointed out that given the citizenship of his mother, where he was born wouldn’t have mattered anyway – see Ted Cruz). WND’s apocolyptic world view pushes an agenda to help bring it to fruition, and they have repeatedly proven that they have no problem telling out-right lies to do so.

The media is interested in the same thing as every other business — survival and profit. So of course they will do whatever it takes to generate clicks and views to get ad revenue. The more controversial, sensationalist or fluffy will beat out actual in-depth substance which requires more time and payroll.

@Charles: “news” according so many on the right; anything (regardless of it’s veracity) which supports their agenda.

If I were to believe WND, I would think Obama was a Muslim, Atheist, Socialist, in the pockets of the Jewish banking cartels. Cognitive dissonance is so rampant in this country that you don’t even bother to question why KFSM would report frequently on the Clinton foundation but completely neglect to mention Trump’s foundation admitting to felony tax fraud.